The imperfect tense in German

The imperfect tense is mainly used in written or formal German. It describes past events.

It is used in the following situations:

• to describe a completed event in the past – eg Letzte Woche hatte ich eine Party. – Last week I had a party.

• to describe what was happening before something else occurred – eg Ich las mein Buch, als das Telefon klingelte. – I was reading my book when the phone rang.

• in written language such as reports, newspaper articles and novels.

The verbs haben (to have) and sein (to be) are nearly always used in the imperfect tense rather than the perfect tense.

The imperfect forms of haben are:

The imperfect forms of sein are:

Change the following present tense sentences into the imperfect tense:

Es gibt means both ‘there is’ and ‘there are’, depending on the context.

For example:

• In meiner Stadt gibt es eine schöne Kirche. – In my town there is a beautiful church.

• Es gibt Regen in Norddeutschland. – There is rain in northern Germany.

• Es gibt viele Schüler in meiner Schule. – There are lots of pupils in my school.

When es gibt is used to talk about something which existed or happened in the past, the imperfect form es gab is used to say ‘there was’ or ‘there were’.

For example:

• In meiner Stadt gab es eine große Kegelbahn. – In my town there was a bowling alley.

• Es gab letztes Jahr einen Karneval in Köln. – There was a carnival in Cologne last year.

Regular verbs follow a clear pattern in the imperfect tense:

1. Remove the -en or -n from the infinitive to get the stem: kaufen → kauf-

2. Add the regular imperfect endings to the stem kauf → ich kaufte or wir kauf

Irregular verbs in the imperfect tense have:

• a stem change

• an imperfect ending for irregular verbs

Irregular verbs follow a clear pattern in the imperfect tense.

The verb trinken is an example of an irregular verb.

The imperfect stem of trinken is trank.

You can form the imperfect tense like this:

• Add the correct subject pronoun ending to the stem:trinken → trank → du trankst

• For some subject pronouns, no additional ending is needed:trinken → trank → ich trank

Some common irregular verbs in the imperfect tense:

Additional useful verbs in the imperfect tense:

Practise what you've learned about the imperfect tense with this quiz.